Days Six and Seven
I was tired last night and forgot to report in.

I started writing at 11:00 (after walking a friend's dog for the last time. She came home yesterday. Hooray!) and was writing by 12:00. I didn't check e-mail or the web until after 18:00. I put in a total of six hours, which consisted largely of outlining and researching a story, then realizing that to get the story right, I should really go visit the Old Bailey and have a look at a court room and the environs. Knowing that I couldn't yet write the story I wanted to without further research, I started outlining a different story.

So today, I started moodling and making notes at 9:00. I wrote notes for one story on the underground, then tried to see a court room in the Old Bailey. However, my timing was such that I couldn't get in to see anything. I *did* get to see the reporters and photographers waiting outside to get photos of people emerging from the sentencing of serial killer Levi Bellfield. I knew nothing of the case at that time, but saw photographers swarm around a young woman whom I now know was Kate Sheedy, one of Bellfield's surviving victims.

Since I was already in the neighborhood, I continued west to the Royal Courts of Justice, which I had always wanted to see on the inside, anyway. I watched an informative video about the building, about the divisions of the Royal Courts, and about court procedure. I wanted to see the stone dog and cat that decorate one entrance --- they snarl at one another and are meant to represent litigants! But no one could tell me where the dog and cat were. Not the woman at the Enquiry Desk, not any of the lawyers I asked. I sat in on a civil case until it recessed for lunch, and I still wanted to see that dog and cat. I asked a man who was pacing in the main gallery if he knew where I could find the dog and cat "over the judges' entrance." He told me he had been coming to the court for years and knew of no such sculptures, but he told me where the two judges' entrances were. Then he asked where I was from, and said that if I wanted to sit in on an interesting hearing, there was a murder appeal reconvening in Court 9 at 14:00.

I checked the two entrances, but saw no dog and cat. I went to Court 9 at the appointed hour and discovered that the man who had told me about the murder appeal was the presiding appellate judge, Lord Justice Hooper (Sir Anthony Hooper). About the appeal, I can say only these things: 1. It was very interesting. 2. It concerned the alleged murder of a 45-year-old legally blind man, Colin Greenwood, by two 14-year-old boys, Leon Gray and Lewis Barlow (all of whom have been identified by name in the press) The boys had been convicted in September. 3. The defense succeeded in overturning the conviction, and a new trial has been ordered.

More than that, I cannot say without violating the court's explicit prohibition on reporting any details of the appeal. I don't think I want to experience the courts as a defendant!

I made notes, as the details of the case suited my fiction-making needs wonderfully, but I will, of course, make up my own imaginary flesh to hang on the bones of this actual case. I have two fully-developed story ideas, and have been writing or actively researching for eight hours today. Still no draft, but I account this a really good day. This is what I once imagined it would be like to be a writer: satisfying my curiosity about the real world, and then lying about it artfully.

I did finally meet someone who knew where the dog and cat were. I had to go look from a back street. Actually, the dog and cat were anti-climactic, but they had brought me to Lord Justice Hooper's court, and for that I will be forever grateful.

I first logged onto the web at 17:00. I still haven't looked at e-mail. That's next. And then I hope to draft at least one of these stories after dinner tonight!